Your Intent
by Midorima Kazunari
Summary: During the Kyoto class trip, Nagisa learns to use his assassination techniques for a purpose other than death.
1. Chapter 1 - Spring

Nagisa always slept tentatively, lightly like a cat, ready to spring up at the least little noise. His paranoia was well-founded – living with his instable mother had taught him vigilance even during sleep – and now that he was in the dorm-style bedroom for the Kyoto class trip, surrounded by a host of assassins-in-training, that life-long preparation for waking unannounced came in handy.

"Okaasan…" The word escaped from Karma's clenched jaw, hissed like a curse. Nagisa opened his eyes and watched the other boy lying on the futon next to his. Everyone had instinctively chosen places further away from the troubling boy, but Nagisa and Karma had been close friends not so long ago and the distance that had drifted them apart last year was blurry now, as if little by little they were scuffing at the line in the dust.

Karma groaned and rolled over on his side, facing Nagisa more properly. His brow was drawn down and his eyes scrunched shut against some sight unseen. "Just stay…" he said – breathing the words more than annunciating it – as if it were as pointless as it was mandatory. "Ikanaide kudasai, Okassan…," Karma continued in a breathless whisper, muffled by the pillow.

 _Please don't go, mother? Such a formal way for a son to speak_ , Nagisa thought. _It reminds me of how I have to speak to my mother when she's in one of her moods._

A cloud slipped past in the night sky, allowing the moon to reflect off the white bed linens, providing a gentle nightlight to the room. Karma sniffed and without opening his eyes, he reached out and took Nagisa's hand.

"Okassan, domo arigato gozaimasu," Karma reactively thanked his mother in his dreams.

 _Well, I guess if this is what he needs; I can be a stand in for my friend._

Nagisa plumped his pillow with his free hand and had just closed his eyes to resume his battle with sleep, when he heard a soft sound like a single rain drop plopping on the tatami. _Great, while Class 3-A gets private rooms, we get a roof that leaks: figures._

He looked up to the ceiling, waiting for the next drop so he could do something about it: a bucket underneath the hole, or move the futons, something, anything, was better than waking up wet in the morning. Then he heard it again, closer than he'd first thought. _How can that be?_ He turned as much as he could away from Karma without taking his hand from the other boy's grasp and studied the night sky. He could count the individual stars, and a fair wind had blown away the clouds to the far side of the horizon.

Plop! There it was again, like some Chinese torture technique he'd read about in one of Karasuma-sensei's field manuals.

 _Ok, if I can't find it from the source, I'll backtrack it_ , _Koro-sensei would be so proud of me_ , he thought, and turned back toward Karma and the open sliver of space between their futons.

The three drops were so closely spaced they seemed as one large splotch on the tatami. He shuffled over, hoping Karma was a deep sleeper, and looked up. The ceiling above them was dry.

 _Hmm_ , he pondered. Plop! This time the sound was right at his ear and when he looked at it, he could see the liquid glistening on the floor. He wet the tip of his finger in it and touched it to his tongue.

 _Salty, like the ocean… like tears… like Karma's tears –_

Nagisa sat upright, pulling his hand from Karma's loose grasp.

"Uh…," Karma protested, his groan turning into a whimper. Nagisa watched to confirm his suspicion and after a beat, he saw another fat, plump tear hit the mat.

"Karma-kun," Nagisa whispered. _When did we start using formality with each other again? It wasn't always that way._ When he got no response, he shook the boy and raised the volume in his voice just a little more, "Karma-kun, wake up."

Karma cleared his throat and blinked his sticky eyes open; he rubbed a hand across them, finally noticing the tears on his face.

"Nagisa-kun?" he growled quietly, pushing up so that he rested on one elbow and glared at Nagisa.

"You were… um, well…" Nagisa put a finger to his eye, unwilling to accuse Karma outright of crying. "You were talking in your sleep," he said instead. "I didn't want you to wake everyone else up."

"Yeah? What was I saying?" he demanded.

"I don't know, it was just sounds really," Nagisa said, looking away.

"Whatever," Karma dismissed. He pulled back the blanket, cinched his belt tighter, and got out of bed. Nagisa didn't move as the anger roiled off Karma like a living tide of black emotions. Karma's feet padded silently toward the exit, followed by a soft swish from the door. Nagisa finally turned and looked as Karma rounded the corner and was gone.

* * *

Nagisa searched the hallways of the hotel, the bathrooms, and the common areas, but didn't find Karma until he investigated the small garden off the kitchen filled with fragrant herbs and vegetables. Karma sat on the small stone bench at the center with a daisy clutched in his fist, half the petals were already yanked out and as Nagisa approached, he heard Karma say, "She loves me…" He plucked the next petal. "She loves me not…" He repeated this until all he had left in his palm was the bald black central stalk. "She loves me not…" Karma ground the sound out and crushed the remnants of the flower in his hand.

"Are you ok?" Nagisa asked, making sure to keep a sizeable distance between him and his once best friend.

"Ok? Of course, what gave you the impression I wasn't ok?" Karma asked, his wide amber eyes glowing from within.

"I don't know. It's just not like you to storm off –"

"How do you know what I'm like now?" Karma asked. "It's not like you came to see me while I was suspended. I've changed and so have you."

"That's not fair, Karma-kun. You were the one who stopped coming around. You made it pretty clear you didn't want to be around me anymore, so I… honored your decision."

"Honored my decision, huh?" he said, staring hard into Nagisa's face, looking at him fully, searching for some sort of lie, but he found none and looked away first.

"Did you want me to chase you?" Nagisa asked, smirking.

"Don't be a dumbass, Nagisacough kun." Karma almost left off the honorific, but at the last second, he couldn't.

"Do you think one of these days we'll go back to dropping the –"

"Who cares? Call me whatever you want. I don't care," Karma snapped, as irritable as Bitch-sensei when someone insinuated she was old. "No one cares… she doesn't; why should anyone else?" He aimed his last comments at his bare feet, but Nagisa heard them anyway.

"You've met my mother, Karma-kun."

"So what?"

"I've never met your mother."

"Neither have I," Karma shouted, suddenly on his feet and in Nagisa's face. "Oh, she comes home sometimes, with Dad in tow, but they're strangers to me. At least you know your mother and father."

Nagisa staggered back, away from the radiating contempt that danced along Karma's aura like a live current of electricity. He took a deep breath and masked his own aura. _We were best friend for two years, then drifted apart for a short time, but now we're on the mend, aren't we? I have to take this chance; it'll only come once._

Making himself as harmless as possible, assuming the posture he had to with his mother – with bowed head and hands loose and at his side – he toppled forward, as if tripping and fell into Karma's hands as his friend instinctively reached out to stop his momentum. In that second he struck with the speed of a snake and latched his arms around Karma's neck, bringing him in to an embrace.

"I'm sorry, Karma, I should have chased you." Karma twitched, confused about the conflicting instincts. "I'm so sorry. You were testing me, weren't you? To see if I'd leave you, too."

"Dumbass," Karma sighed, wrapping his arms around Nagisa's waist and not fighting the hug any longer. Again, he'd let Nagisa close enough to kill him, but for once it didn't matter. "It wasn't a test… life isn't a test, it's just…" He stopped unsure of what he really meant. All he wanted was to bury his head in the loose blue hair that flowed around Nagisa's shoulders, so he did. He hadn't seen Nagisa with his hair down in so long, it was almost shocking to realize that his friend had allowed him to see him this vulnerable. "Let's forget about that time, Nagisa-kun, and try to move forward with what we have now."

"Ok, Karma-kun."

"I can't remember the last time anyone's held –" Karma stiffened and dropped his arms from Nagisa's waist. He used his hands to pry Nagisa from around his neck, then stepped away before he could say something as embarrassing as what was happening between his legs. He couldn't help the blush that rose off his chest and up his neck, but he could put some distance between them – just like the last time – and allowed the darkness of the night to hide his emotions. "Go on ahead, I'll catch up in a minute."

Nagisa stood there with his hands still up in the air as if he were holding his best friend; he was a little – no a lot – at a loss, his mouth gaping as he tried to form words. His hands clenched to fists as he blushed and put his hands loose at his side. _There was that one moment, wasn't there, when we were connected again?_

"Go on," Karma said, looking away, his arms crossed over his chest, hands gripping at his own shoulders.

"Ok, Karma-kun, I'll go on ahead, but…" he stepped in close, ignoring the way Karma flinched, and put his hand on the other boy's arm. When he didn't resist that gesture, Nagisa advanced a little more, and moved his hand to Karma's chin, and urged the other to look at him.

"If you won't let me stay – or chase you – then this time I want to invite you to chase me." Nagisa stepped up on tiptoes and chastely kissed Karma's lips, pulling away almost as fast as if he'd struck with a knife, then he was gone into the night, leaving Karma defenseless.

"Well," Karma said, chuckling, once he'd felt Nagisa's aura fade. "If that's the way you want this to go, Nagisa, I'm willing to accept your intent."

* * *

A/N: This just popped into my head today. I'm not sure if I intend to continue this or not, but I'll mark it as incomplete, just in case you really like it.


	2. Chapter 2 - July

A/N: On one of the fansites, it is mentioned that there is more than one reading for Karma's name, and that his classmates use only one pronunciation, so I decided to play with that in this chapter.

I'd like to thank Karnag and Crimson Blue Assassins for their kind reviews and their encouragement to see more of this story. All reviews, favorites, and follows are appreciated! If you'd like to see your name in chapter three's author notes, but sure to drop a review for chapter one or two. Thanks - Kazu

* * *

Yes, there were perks to placing second in the entire school on their tests. The least of which was the ability to move out of Class 3-E. He'd rejected that out of hand; he wasn't going anywhere, as long as Nagisa kept smiling at him when he got those grades.

Second in the school – right after Gakushū Asano – but passing him was just a matter of applying his assassination skills in just the right order. The end of term exams were coming up soon – there was always another test and a smile to be bestowed – and all he had to do was put in a minimum amount of effort to surpass himself, and his rival.

Karma opened his Japanese workbook, intending to start with his worst subject and work his way toward Math – his best – when he heard a key in the front door. He froze; thinking of a thousand things at the same time:

 _Did I arm the alarm? I don't know._

 _The cleaning lady doesn't come until Friday – today is Wednesday._

 _Nagisa always calls before he comes over – he doesn't have a key._

 _Koro-sensei always comes to the window – never the door._

As thoughts continued to swirl through his mind, his body took over and dumped his schoolbag out on the bed. There were a plethora of anti-sensei weapons to choose from: grenades, guns, knives, but none of those would do anything to a burglar or human assassin.

 _That's alright; the gun looks real and I'm always armed – even without a weapon – thanks to Karasuma-sensei_.

He slipped the gun into the back of his pants and loosened his shirt to cover it. Karma got some hair gel from his bathroom and applied it to the squeaky hinges on his door, then opened it silently. He stood in the shadow created by the top of the stairs, and watched as the front doorknob wiggled again.

 _Giggles... I hear –_

The door flew inward and the giggles grew louder as a tall redhead woman burst into the entryway, tripping over her own feet. A dark-haired man entered behind her, his eyes glued to his phone. Karma sighed, calculating the options of getting out of the house from the second story without breaking his legs.

 _It would be so much easier to just avoid them._

"Karuma, darling, where are you? Mommy and Daddy are home and we have presents!" She wore an antique rose lamé dress with grey stripes under the bust-line and across the flared skirt. _Chanel, maybe, or Yves St. Laurent… thanks so much, Bitch-sensei for filling my head with such nonsense._ Distracted, he didn't realize how long he stood there, but she looked up, just as he was about to melt away and saw him. "There's my cutesy-poo, come on down; we'll be waiting in the living room!"

"Hello, Chibi-kun," his father waved, wandering after his mother like a baby duck dressed in designer slacks and a polo that probably cost three times what it should, simply because of that little monogrammed logo stitched over the breast.

He plodded down the stairs, one slow step after another, and as his foot hit the bottom step, his mother reappeared and grabbed his arm with her French-manicured talons.

 _Again, thank you, Bitch-sensei for teaching me that term_.

"Here you go, Kaurma –"

"Mother, no one calls me that anymore –"

"I'm not just anyone; I gave birth to you, Kaurma, and that's the name your father and I gifted you. Now, here's a present for you. I know you love Mew, so when I saw this I knew I had to get it for you," she gushed, shoving the blue stuffed animal into his hands.

"Mew," Karma whispered, his voice breaking. Yes, it had once been his favorite Pokemon, and she'd even remembered he'd loved the blue one – not the pink one – but except for the collection of cards he'd kept for sentimental reasons, he hadn't played with such childish things in years.

 _That's the way things have to be, when you raise yourself_.

"Thank you, Mother, Father." His father was too busy texting on his phone to do anything other than nod. He had to resist the urge to reach over and grab the phone, smashing it on the ground. Just picturing the action caused his blood to boil; it felt good. "I thought you weren't coming home until August?"

"Well, we had a day off and we haven't seen you since your last birthday, so we made a special trip to see you."

"That stock went for better than expected," his father said.

She made a fist and whispered, "Yes!"

"Let's go out to dinner to celebrate," his father suggested. "I've been wanting to eat at Gusto's; I've been craving their 'Cheese in Burgers' forever and we can buy you some capsule toys. It's good to be home."

"Our Gusto's closed over a year ago," Karma said.

"Oh, well, we'll drive around and pick something while we're out."

"That's a great idea! How about you invite someone along? You know how uneven numbers bother's your father's aesthetic."

"Yeah, ok."

"I'm going to change. Go call someone, Kaurma!"

* * *

Karma sat at his desk, fingers tightly clenched around the stuffed Mew's throat, and took long, deep breaths. His therapist called them 'cleansing,' he thought of them as a distraction from the urge to break things. In his mind, glass shattered every time his mother giggled downstairs.

When he was calm enough to unlock his jaw and pick up his phone without hurling it across the room, he dialed Nagisa's number.

"Karma-kun!" The cheerful voice, soothed him. "I was just thinking about you."

"Let me guess: you're on problem six of tonight's homework."

"No, actually, number four," Nagisa admitted, his laughter was more purging than any stupid exercise and the pain in his head lessened as his blood pressure dropped.

"Can you come out tonight?" Karma asked, casually. "My parents came home unexpectedly and they told me to invite a friend out for dinner."

"Oh," Nagisa said, "Oh, I wish I could. My mother…"

"She's in one of her moods again?" Karma twisted the Mew's head to the left and felt a stitch pop in the seam; he dropped the toy immediately.

"You could say that."

"Are you in danger?" Karma pushed. He picked up the toy, and checked the damage. It wasn't so bad, just a small repair and it would be whole again.

"No! No, really, I'm fine, but if I went out and she caught me… She's already angry at me for… well, it doesn't matter. How long are they going to be in town?"

"I don't know. They said they had the day off." Karma arranged the toy on his desk, laying it on its stomach. Those large open eyes stared at him, just like Nagisa would be doing if they were together. He stroked the soft fur, using the tactile sensation to numb the parts of his brain that still raged behind the scenes.

"Oh, Karma, you know I would if I could?"

"Yeah, I know. I'll see you tomorrow, right?

"Right."

He disconnected the call and flung his phone as hard as he could into the mattress. It bounced and landed on the pillow. Mew watched him, not judging him in the momentary lapse of decorum.

* * *

He walked into the living room and found his father was still pecking at the phone and his mother had fired up her tablet. Neither of them noticed when he arrived.

"Um, when I called my friend, Nagisa –"

"Is that the nice girl you talk about all the time? The one with the blue hair?"

" _He_ said _he_ still needs to study for the final exams, so _he_ can't go with us."

"Oh," his mother said, "Oh, well maybe you need to stay home, too. We can't risk your grades going down any farther, now can we? I mean really, E Class…?"

 _So, you don't bother looking at my grades either, Mother? Second in the entire school isn't good enough for you?_

"Sure, I'll go upstairs and study. Bring me back something to eat, ok?" he said, not waiting for a reply. Once upstairs he sat at his desk and contemplated the books, open and ready.

"Ok, Kaurma, we're going now. See you later!" his mother's voice called from the front door and a second later, it slammed closed .

With a single sweep of his arm, everything went flying onto the floor, he stood, breathing hard, his nostrils flaring with each inhale. In the middle of the heap of crumpled papers and mistreated books, the blue eyes of the Mew plush stared up at him. Karma lifted the toy from the mess and held it to his chest.

 _They'll be gone tomorrow, just be patient._


	3. Chapter 3 - Christmas Day

Being first in the school was just icing on his birthday cake. Karma opened the door, smiling at the blue-haired boy waiting on his front step. "I'm almost ready to go, let me grab my jacket."

"No problem, I'm a little early."

"Karuma? Who's that at the door?" his mother's voice cut into him sharper than any blade could have.

"My friend, Nagisa." Karma took his jacket off the peg inside the door, slipped his feet into his shoes, and checked his pocket for keys, wallet, and phone. He stepped out the front door as his mother entered the front hallway.

"Oh, good, we finally get to meet your friend. Karuma talks about you all the time, dear. It's good you are able to join us to celebrate Karuma's birth –"

"He's not here for that, Mother. Our class has plans tonight for Christmas, so, I guess I'll see you next year. Have a good night," he said, and pushed on Nagisa's shoulder until he spun around and then walked quickly down the three stairs to the path leading to the street.

"Karuma, we came all this way to see you on your birthday, the least you can do is spend it with us," she said, clearly agitated.

"The class had these plans for weeks, Mother. If you'd bothered to ask me –"

"Weeks?" she shrieked. "We've had plans for fourteen years, you've always known that we –"

"Always?" Karma said, in his trademark sarcastic tone. Karma stopped, his hands in his pocket and his back loose, relaxed, and indifferent. Nagisa froze midstep, and turned so he could see both mother and son at the same time.

"You missed my tenth and twelfth birthdays. If the pattern held, I'd have been alone this year, too. So I made plans, because I don't know anything when it comes to you or father."

"We've sacrificed to make sure that you have the best of everything," she said, sniffing. "You've got a house in a safe neighborhood, designer clothes, an elite education, despite the fact that you've decided that was disposable and threw it away –"

"You don't get to play doting parent on one day out of three hundred and sixty five, Mother. On the end of term exams I placed first in the entire school. I'm not in E-Class because I'm stupid, Mother, I'm there because I'm so full of spite and rage that I have no qualms against hurting people. But… you wouldn't know about any of that; you've made it clear you don't know who I am. So, quit the crocodile tears, go back to your jet-setting lifestyle, with your conferences and beaches, and pretend you don't have a mentally disturb son. I'll see you next time you get a whim and feel like being a parent again."

Karma had walked down the path and out the gate before Nagisa caught up to him.

"You, um…"

"Can I stay at your place tonight?"

"Of course you can," Nagisa answered. He patted the pocket on the side of his trousers, making sure the two small packages were still there. "We'd better hurry, or we'll miss the others."

* * *

The students of class E spread out on the gentle slope of the far side of the mountain in groups of twos and threes, sharing blankets and warmth as above them fireworks lit up the night sky.

Nagisa and Karma lay shoulder to shoulder on one blanket and next to them Kanzaki and Kayano nestled on another.

"So what did you end up with in the Christmas gift exchange?" Karma asked.

"The multi-tool that doubles as a hair clip. It's pretty awesome, actually."

"The one all the girls were fighting over? How did you end up with that coveted prize?"

"I switched for it when no one was watching. Koro-sensei told us to use our assassination skills after all," he said, modestly. "What about you?"

"I got stuck with the first gift I got, the Pokemon stationary set," he said, dismissively even though he was secretly please. "But who knew Koro-sensei would go so all out to get those honey-roasted pecans? Did you jot that down as one of his weaknesses?"

Nagisa's laugh was full-bodied and relaxed as he turned his face to see Karma's expression; he saw how close he was to Karma and panicked. "This was a pretty good night," he said, blurting out the first thing that came to his mind as a burst of blue fizzled out overhead.

"Who would have thought that our last Christmas would be our best," Karma agreed.

"Last?"

"If we don't kill Koro-sensei, it will be our last."

"That's unlike you; you're usually so confident."

"Sorry, I guess that fight with my mother still has me off balance," Karma admitted, no trace of the usual cock-sure delinquent in his manner.

"It's ok, Karma-kun, family has a way of doing that. This class seem more like a family than my own does, sometimes."

"I spend more time with the Octopus than my own family," Karma said, his voice sadder than Nagisa had ever heard it, as three rockets launched in concert, crisscrossing the black sky and then erupting in bright whites and yellows.

"Who's the class mother? Not Bitch-sensei, she's more like a step-mother."

"Kanzaki then," Karma furnished. "She brought the Christmas cake and made sure everyone had a piece. She's very responsible."

"Well, almost everyone!" Nagisa said, laughing. "You did push Terasaka's piece into his face. You have to admit, he didn't get to eat it."

"Kanzaki gave him her piece to make up for it," Karma protested. A chrysanthemum of purple phosphorus exploded above them, looking a little like Koro-sensei when given an incorrect answer.

"And you gave her yours, so it all still worked. I wished you'd shared my piece with me, like I'd offered," Nagisa said, pouting.

"I'm not a fan of sweets, but I appreciated the offer. And the father?"

"Isogai, without a doubt," Nagisa offered.

"You're just saying that because he's a class rep."

"There's a reason he was elected," Nagisa responded. The wind picked up, dispersing the colored lights away into sad gray streaks of smoke; Nagisa shivered.

"You cold?"

"Just my neck," Nagisa sighed, "I couldn't find my scarf." He reached back and rubbed at the patch of flesh left bare above his coat collar.

"You could let your hair down," Karma suggested.

"No way, everyone will make fun of how I look like a girl."

"You don't look like a girl with your hair down, you're…" _beautiful, amazing, stunning –_

Nagisa sat up suddenly and threw a small package at Karma's face, striking him squarely on the bridge of the nose.

"What in the world…? Are you trying to poke my eye out?" Karma growled angrily as he rub the mark between his eyes.

"You're a jerk," Nagisa said, stood, and marched off.

Karma sat up and as he did, the package fell off his chest and opened, scattering small scraps of paper. He picked one up, pricking his finger on a sharp edge and then realized it wasn't just a piece of paper, but a miniature origami model of a cat. He carefully searched around him, and picked up each tiny work of art: a crane, a horse, a dragon… not all of them were easily discernible in the dark, but after he was sure he'd gotten them all corralled back into the box, he searched the blanket and grass for more, and when he was certain he had them all, he went in search of Nagisa.

* * *

The lights on the bridge burned orange and yellow above and blue below, making the whole night sky look like a sunset over the water. Nagisa stood with Okuda sharing a quiet laugh at something.

"…boys are so clueless," she said, her arm hooked around Nagisa's, "…present company excluded, of course. But, let's talk about something less depressing. I think that's the prettiest tree I've seen this year," she said, and they both craned their necks to look up at the two-story high tree made entirely out of green and blue LED lights that the school had erected on their mountain so that the whole village could see it.

"I don't understand the symbol of the tree," Nagisa countered. "It's pretty and all, but what's the point?" Nagisa turned as he sensed Karma approaching, as if waiting for an answer.

"I don't know, I've never bothered to celebrate this holiday before," Karma said with a shrug.

A whoosh of air ruffled Karma's hair as Koro-sensei appeared.

"A teachable moment! This calls for Koro-sensei. The modern Christmas tree – or Yule tree as it is sometimes known – originated in Germany sometime in the sixteenth or possibly fifteenth century…"

"Here," Karma said, holding the small box out to Nagisa. "I'm sorry if my hesitation made you angry. I was trying to figure out the best word to describe you with your hair down, but none of them seemed right. I usually don't have a problem with words, but you do that to me sometimes – tie my tongue up – when it should be easy to say what I mean."

Nagisa stared at the box, words caught in his throat. He swallowed. "It's for you, actually. I'm sorry I chucked it at you."

"For me?"

"It's your birthday present. Since I don't have a job, and I had to buy something for the exchange, I decided to make you something."

"They're amazing – just like you. How did you make them so small?"

"Tweezers," Nagisa laughed, "and a lot of patience. All the girls in class have cute note paper, so every time they'd pass me a note, I'd cut a square of paper off them and fold them into a different animal. I wasn't sure what your favorite was, so I just did lots of different ones."

Karma opened the box, carefully shielding it from the wind. "I hope I found them all, the box opened when you… but I searched everywhere for them."

"There were eight," Nagisa leaned in at the same time Karma did, a blush rising on his cheeks, but he held his ground and counted the colorful folded creatures, enumerating eight in all. "They're all there. Thank goodness."

"Thank you, Nagisa-kun, this is the best birthday I've ever had." With his free hand, Karma reached out and touched Nagisa's hair, "Oh, now it comes to me, that perfect word for you." He leaned forward, a wicked gleam in his eye and whispered it into Nagisa's ear so that it would stay between them forever. "You're lovely."

He began to pull back, but his nose caught the enchanting fragrance of grass mixed with the natural scent of Nagisa. Before Karma could change his mind, he touched his lips to the elegant curve of Nagisa's neck, lingered there as he felt the flutter of his pulse beneath the skin, then sighed, moving away with a swaggering smile.

 _If this has to be my last birthday, at least it will be the best._


End file.
